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I hope I can link a recent Vox/Weeds podcast that artfully outlined “what changed about cities”
The best insight is that Zoom has diminished the relative value and urgency of “transacting at the nexus” and that cities (NY & DC, Silicon Valley ) that previously had insisted “you must be here to get the best deal* done right” have all lost some of their monopoly power to be “the only place to be”
*best deal == of whatever type the particular nexus promised to be best at.
And this was the economic/production claim that “the city” made as a national/global/regional transaction center—zoom has widened the definition of what it means to be “in” the center—can Red Bank now count (on most days) as close enough to Wall Street to get the “nexus” advantages.
note: the “zoom instead of being at the nexus” is a worker productivity claim, not the personal/consumption claim (that people will devote more of their wealth to live close to long-tail experiences in the arts or culture)
My conclusion would be that the center has lost its centrality in a series of 10% losses:
10% to 20% of “monthly FaceTime” trips won’t happen physically—the center will no longer be physical host for either fewer meetings or fewer participants
10% to 20% of FaceTime trips will happen from farther out in the hinterlands (“from my house on the Cape”).
10% to 20% of what had been “weekday commuting” will be recast as “business travel”
The best insight is that Zoom has diminished the relative value and urgency of “transacting at the nexus” and that cities (NY & DC, Silicon Valley ) that previously had insisted “you must be here to get the best deal* done right” have all lost some of their monopoly power to be “the only place to be”
*best deal == of whatever type the particular nexus promised to be best at.
And this was the economic/production claim that “the city” made as a national/global/regional transaction center—zoom has widened the definition of what it means to be “in” the center—can Red Bank now count (on most days) as close enough to Wall Street to get the “nexus” advantages.
note: the “zoom instead of being at the nexus” is a worker productivity claim, not the personal/consumption claim (that people will devote more of their wealth to live close to long-tail experiences in the arts or culture)
My conclusion would be that the center has lost its centrality in a series of 10% losses:
10% to 20% of “monthly FaceTime” trips won’t happen physically—the center will no longer be physical host for either fewer meetings or fewer participants
10% to 20% of FaceTime trips will happen from farther out in the hinterlands (“from my house on the Cape”).
10% to 20% of what had been “weekday commuting” will be recast as “business travel”